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Post by snoggle on Nov 12, 2015 21:22:43 GMT
The Financial Times is reporting that the DfT have told TfL that it will have to function without any operating grant by 2020. This means it will lose £700m of funding to actually run the tube, DLR, Overground, Bus and cycle hire networks. When you consider the bus network currently receives circa £400m per annum you can draw your own conclusions as to what starts happening next year when the cuts will start to phase in. Wave goodbye to any better services other than those currently in consultation. I expect a big change when the new Business Plan and budget emerges. Investment spend is allegedly protected but bus services don't get much investment spend and all service enhancements come out of the bus revenue budget not capital. The report says TfL may need to raise more commercial monies, increase fares, improve efficiency or cut services to cope with the grant reduction. Whoever the next Mayor is will have no money to anything to improve services. What the heck is the point in investment spending when you cannot afford to employ the staff and supporting infrastructure to run a comprehensive service. How long before the Boris "I put bus fares up by 66%" regime resembles happy blissful days? I guess we'll have the £2.50 PAYG bus fare by 2020. This sort of policy is the pathetic nonsense that we had under LRT in the 1980s when the system was left falling to bits and deeply unattractive to use. FT article - not sure if this will work if you don't have a FT logon or subscription. |
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Post by ServerKing on Nov 12, 2015 21:36:25 GMT
Get rid of the cycle hire and vanity projects like the Emirates Dangleway... bit too late to be shot of the LTs but we don't need 200 more. Daring Twickenham to Lea Valley lines Overground extension /construction may not go ahead now...
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Post by snoggle on Nov 12, 2015 21:47:44 GMT
Get rid of the cycle hire and vanity projects like the Emirates Dangleway... bit too late to be shot of the LTs but we don't need 200 more. Daring Twickenham to Lea Valley lines Overground extension /construction may not go ahead now... I think you'll find that Crossrail 2 will get funding from the Chancellor. He gets excited by big tunnels and massive erections ... I mean buildings.   I've obviously been using the 123 too much.   I certainly think Cycle Hire needs to be completely reviewed as the subsidy is completely ridiculous on that but I suspect it'd cost TfL money to buy out the Santander sponsorship contract - money that TfL won't have. My point is that there's no point building Crossrail / GOBLIN extensions / Crossrail 2 etc if the fares are so high people can't afford to use it or you can't afford to run early morning, late night or decent Sunday frequencies because they require subsidy. Osborne's crazy nut headed belief that subsidy is evil, unless you're bribing the Chinese to build nuclear power stations, will lead to all sorts of nightmares transport wise. As soon as you get into a cuts frame of mind you send the wrong messages to people about how convenient or safe the network is to use. Prospective passengers stay away because they end with the wrong perception of using the network. Excuse me but a rant follows .... switch off if you don't want to read it. We're going to end up in the same mess with social services, health services, the police, the judicial system and housing. There will be mass public discontent within 5 years once people learn they're being evicted from their homes, can't be treated by doctors and they have no access to legal redress and the police aren't able to manage crime properly. We've been here before and the loons at Westminster never learn the lessons of the past. It's even more astonishing that it's the Tories who are dismantling police, justice and defence. Thatcher never did that. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2015 22:16:03 GMT
Working in one of the,public sector organisations mentioned, I can say the following...
By 2020 , police won't be turning up to code red calls to disturbances on buses , unless someone is being seriously injured. Fare disputes, drunks falling asleep and refusing to get off, pick pocketing , forget it.
Crime will soar.
TfL budget , will we see retraction of cross border services ? How can TfL proceed with any consultations and extensions now given this loss of money ? Or are they spending whilst they still can ?
Is it time to look at deregulation in London ?
The French model for example, is intensive urban services and "on-demand" services for rural areas.
Would it be better for TfL to contract out networks of routes and give more power to operating companies to design the routes and frequencies ?
Tendering individual routes must be expensive for all involved
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Post by danorak on Nov 12, 2015 22:39:24 GMT
Is it time to look at deregulation in London ? The French model for example, is intensive urban services and "on-demand" services for rural areas. Would it be better for TfL to contract out networks of routes and give more power to operating companies to design the routes and frequencies ? Tendering individual routes must be expensive for all involved And yet, we see the Government bringing forward a bill that will see deregulation rolled back in some places in favour of the London approach! Not what you would have expected from the Conservatives either. They either don't understand what they're actually doing through devolution to bus operators or the buck is being passed for 'difficult decisions' on bus subsidies. |
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Post by snoggle on Nov 12, 2015 23:11:24 GMT
Is it time to look at deregulation in London ? The French model for example, is intensive urban services and "on-demand" services for rural areas. Would it be better for TfL to contract out networks of routes and give more power to operating companies to design the routes and frequencies ? Tendering individual routes must be expensive for all involved And yet, we see the Government bringing forward a bill that will see deregulation rolled back in some places in favour of the London approach! Not what you would have expected from the Conservatives either. They either don't understand what they're actually doing through devolution to bus operators or the buck is being passed for 'difficult decisions' on bus subsidies. Definintely the latter ... moving the blame for destruction of bus services from Marsham St to town halls. They've done the same with health prevention, social care and other things. When it goes pear shaped "nothing to do with me guv". If I was Greater Manchester I'd now be running a mile from taking on NHS funding and control for that area. Can you imagine what will happen to local councillors if people die through neglect or cuts in GM's hospitals? I can Jeremy Hunt smiling already. Ditto Uncle Patrick McLoughlin when he manages to foist most bus services on local authority groupings and then says "oh sorry, didn't I tell you I've scrapped BSOG, Green Bus Grant and not I'm paying you a penny for concessionary bus travel". Bang!  |
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Post by twobellstogo on Nov 12, 2015 23:30:29 GMT
Get rid of the cycle hire and vanity projects like the Emirates Dangleway... bit too late to be shot of the LTs but we don't need 200 more. Daring Twickenham to Lea Valley lines Overground extension /construction may not go ahead now... By some margin the worst of these is the Emirates Airline. I kind of see where the thinking is for the LT, and the cycle hire scheme is decent enough, but with no plans to extend it to SE London, I don't use it as much as I would like. The Emirates Airline looks pretty, but goes from NOG to nowhere in particular. Trouble is, it would cost money to remove it now. As for the proposed grant cut, if it is managed well, and TfL find other ways to plug the shortfall (yes, I'm happy for mass sponsorship of TfL stations etc. if it means services are protected), you might just about get away with similar bus service levels as now, but with minimal improvements and possible above inflation fare rises. But if it isn't, think 4th September 1982 for those of you old enough to remember that fateful day. Who's going to start a thread on 'what you would cut route wise to plug the grant shortfall'?... |
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Post by snowman on Nov 13, 2015 7:01:40 GMT
The new mayor can easily raise the £700m shortfall, it's a political problem of fare raising and stopping wasting on vanity projects. There will also be the apparent problem of making it more expensive to travel for those who can't afford it.
The Emirates cable car was the classic money loser, ironically now proposing to dig a tunnel and start a bus service to parallel it.
I would get rid of the free travel for things like police (do people earning say 40k need it, when nurses don't get it), have night fares 1.5 times day fares, go back to off-peak pensioner bus buses (as in 1980s when not valid 4pm - 6pm), if you wanted to travel in peak you paid your own fare or you waited until cheap.
I would scrap the discount to councils for over 60+ passes, why give someone below pension age effectively a £2k annual travel card when they could still be paying, what's the justification for this ticket subsidy. Think how many people are between 60 and 65 (going up to 66 then 67 by 2020s), if half of them bought an annual travel card, then have covered your £700m shortfall.
I would also limit hours of free children's bus passes to finish at 7pm (remember the Education Act obliges LEAs to pay for the tickets if school is more than certain distance from home) so this is another ticket subsidy where it doubles up.
I would also reintroduce fare zones on buses, your pass at least needs to have the zone for the start point. The tube pass already has premium for zone1, I would give same percentage premium to zone1 bus pass.
Guess what revenue goes up, don't need to cut services. As I said its a question of political will and not wasting on silly vanity projects.
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Post by snoggle on Nov 13, 2015 9:00:34 GMT
The new mayor can easily raise the £700m shortfall, it's a political problem of fare raising and stopping wasting on vanity projects. There will also be the apparent problem of making it more expensive to travel for those who can't afford it. The Emirates cable car was the classic money loser, ironically now proposing to dig a tunnel and start a bus service to parallel it. I would get rid of the free travel for things like police (do people earning say 40k need it, when nurses don't get it), have night fares 1.5 times day fares, go back to off-peak pensioner bus buses (as in 1980s when not valid 4pm - 6pm), if you wanted to travel in peak you paid your own fare or you waited until cheap. I would scrap the discount to councils for over 60+ passes, why give someone below pension age effectively a £2k annual travel card when they could still be paying, what's the justification for this ticket subsidy. Think how many people are between 60 and 65 (going up to 66 then 67 by 2020s), if half of them bought an annual travel card, then have covered your £700m shortfall. I would also limit hours of free children's bus passes to finish at 7pm (remember the Education Act obliges LEAs to pay for the tickets if school is more than certain distance from home) so this is another ticket subsidy where it doubles up. I would also reintroduce fare zones on buses, your pass at least needs to have the zone for the start point. The tube pass already has premium for zone1, I would give same percentage premium to zone1 bus pass. Guess what revenue goes up, don't need to cut services. As I said its a question of political will and not wasting on silly vanity projects. Which wouldn't fix a £700m per annum shortfall in funding - I got hold a TfL paper of bus strategy via FOI. It listed the cost of the various concession schems and they don't total £700m. Unfortunately doing anything to concessions, generous as they are, will not play politically regardless of party. No Mayor is going to restrict any benefit for those over 60 because they get off their backsides and vote. Similar risks apply with respect to child travel concessions. Is there still an education act obligation about funding free school travel? I thought it had been scrapped. I don't believe London's concessions have any relevance to education obligations. Wasn't it a money saving (for families) political gesture to encourage ridership? Selling off the Cable Car would almost certainly result in a loss because you'd need to buy out Emirates' sponsorship *and* there is a large loan to pay off to the European Investment Bank. I agree no one should ever build such a folly again and pretend it's a transport scheme. Reintroducing fare zones on the buses would require very considerable investment to make it work and even then there may be an impact on dwell times - people taking longer to board and alight to make sure they've paid the right fare or extension fare if their season doesn't have enough zones. Once you start putting up dwell times you make journey times longer thus making the services less attractive and more expensive to operate. Hardly what I'd call a winning strategy if you've also putting up the cost of travel. TfL are already finding to their cost that people are not travelling by bus because of all of the road work schemes and poor traffic conditions - revenue under budget, patronage below budget and lower than last year (also a poor year against budget). All I'm saying is that superficially "easy" answers to fix financial problems have downsides which could get you into a bigger mess whereby you undermine the good aspects of the transport network. |
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Post by londonbusboy on Nov 13, 2015 10:10:32 GMT
How much would they save by scrapping the free kids travel?
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Post by outwest on Nov 13, 2015 11:27:32 GMT
Rather than cut services, would be more practical to replace the older buses less frequently? More often than not these buses are cascaded around the country, and keep on operating for other bus divisions.
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Post by outwest on Nov 14, 2015 8:23:32 GMT
Maybe, but the RM's kept on going for 40 years though, and both londoners and tourists seem like them.
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Post by snoggle on Nov 14, 2015 9:12:29 GMT
Rather than cut services, would be more practical to replace the older buses less frequently? More often than not these buses are cascaded around the country, and keep on operating for other bus divisions. That doesn't save £700m nor does it help meet air quality issues. To be fair quite a lot of older buses have been run for up to 14 years on a lot of contracts - look at the issues facing London United and Arriva. Abellio have a fair number of old vehicles too. Other operators have spent extensively on engine mods to reduce emissions and presumably those vehicles will be used for as long as they can. We can't escape the air quality issue which is forcing a relatively intensive vehicle replacement programme over the next few years. I suspect there will be more pressure on air quality from whoever is the next Mayor. As was mentioned in another thread recently the appetite of the big groups to cascade vehicles from London has been declining. Many groups are now buying new buses to their own specs for their best performing routes allowing newish vehicles in their fleets to be internally cascaded to other routes. This is reducing the scope to shove "tired" vehicles out of London to see out their final 4-5 years of life. It's now more small independents that are buying old London deckers so they can meet accessibility regs on contracted services. Even then we have the issue of London vehicle specs being very different to those really needed in the provinces and TfL has done nothing to narrow the gap. In fact you can probably argue the gap has got wider as non London operators opt for wifi, power sockets, high quality seating and fancy floors while London has basic interiors, I-Bus, powered ramps, dual doors, air cooling systems etc. |
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Post by outwest on Nov 14, 2015 9:42:59 GMT
Rather than cut services, would be more practical to replace the older buses less frequently? More often than not these buses are cascaded around the country, and keep on operating for other bus divisions. That doesn't save £700m nor does it help meet air quality issues. To be fair quite a lot of older buses have been run for up to 14 years on a lot of contracts - look at the issues facing London United and Arriva. Abellio have a fair number of old vehicles too. Other operators have spent extensively on engine mods to reduce emissions and presumably those vehicles will be used for as long as they can. We can't escape the air quality issue which is forcing a relatively intensive vehicle replacement programme over the next few years. I suspect there will be more pressure on air quality from whoever is the next Mayor. As was mentioned in another thread recently the appetite of the big groups to cascade vehicles from London has been declining. Many groups are now buying new buses to their own specs for their best performing routes allowing newish vehicles in their fleets to be internally cascaded to other routes. This is reducing the scope to shove "tired" vehicles out of London to see out their final 4-5 years of life. It's now more small independents that are buying old London deckers so they can meet accessibility regs on contracted services. Even then we have the issue of London vehicle specs being very different to those really needed in the provinces and TfL has done nothing to narrow the gap. In fact you can probably argue the gap has got wider as non London operators opt for wifi, power sockets, high quality seating and fancy floors while London has basic interiors, I-Bus, powered ramps, dual doors, air cooling systems etc. I agree with everything you said. I just pointing out something in relation to the thread title about cost-saving. Of course with the new ULEZ in Central London new buses albeit electric or hybrid will have to be used. You mention London United and judging by all accounts TA's 2xx were in perfectly sound engineering wise, and with another refurb could have done another contractual cycle. OK this won't save £700m, but could help to reduce the rise in fares, or reduction in frequency which could happen I suppose. |
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Post by mondraker275 on Nov 14, 2015 10:11:24 GMT
How much would they save by scrapping the free kids travel? I believe the free travel are part subsidised by higher fares for Adults. If they did scrap it, then they would also save money from running the extra 100 buses they run for school journeys. It has been about 10 years of free travel, and I think it has been successful in terms of saving unnecessary car journeys for school runs as well as giving children more choice of schools. Many children/young people have also continued to use public transport instead of looking to get a car. |
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I've obviously been using the 123 too much. 
